In the spring of 1881, the steamship Thomas Corwin began a voyage of 15,000 nautical miles into Arctic seas to search for captain G.W. De Long and his ship Jeannette, which had left San Francisco two years earlier to drift across the North Pole as part of the icepack. There had been no word from the Jeannette for months. The ship was never found, but Sierra Club founder John Muir's account of this expedition—which includes vivid descriptions of ice-choked seas, Arctic vegetation, awe-inspiring glaciers, and native people—captures the magic and mystery of the far north.